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[Cross posted from Defeat Poverty DC.]
What does access to healthy foods have to do with defeating poverty?
Not only does the presence of affordable fresh food in a community have the potential to improve residents’ nutrition and overall health, but attracting full-service grocery stores also can boost the local economy – grocery retail creates jobs, generates [...]
Here’s a video of recent Bladensburg High School graduate and aspiring chef Jonathon Gliss cooking a vegetable dish from produce he helps to grow at the Washington Youth Garden.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hl7H0NFrRHw
Jonathon has spent his last two summers working at the Washington Youth Garden. During this last school year, he chose to continue his time with us by [...]
Posted in Access[Cross-posted from Beyond Bread]
Communities east of the Anacostia River suffer from an infamous shortage of grocery stores, and here at Bread for the City we’re doing our part to counteract that lack: we’ve made our food pantry a lot more like the shopping experience.
We’ve previewed this new project on Beyond Bread before: in A Week of Choice, food pantry coordinator Jeffrey Wankel told you that, “after two successful dry-runs, Client Choice…went live for an entire week at our Southeast Center,” teaching us all a very important lesson. “Our clients love the ability to choose what food they receive from our pantry. This alone makes it a priority for us to implement Client Choice as a permanent feature of our food program.”
So we’re pleased to report that the Southeast pantry is now all Client Choice all the time–to the rave reviews of clients, staff and volunteers.
According to Food Coordinator Tony Weldon, the Client Choice program “sets us apart from a church basement, or something like that, even just with the visual effect,” he explains.
The pantry now boasts new shelving units and a layout that is carefully constructed to guide clients through the array of options. After a few months of tweaking, Jeff is proud to note that the “cycle time” (i.e., the average length of each client’s time checking in and receiving their bags) is now comparable to the previous system.
Most of all, the clients love it. “This is their words,” Tony said: “‘Wow! Ya’ll stepped your game up!”
Another positive side-effect of this new system: volunteers and clients actually get to know each other. “Client choice has opened the lines of communication..and there is noticeably more constructive feedback.” Volunteers are able to learn more about the clients they serve, and clients enjoy seeing familiar faces month after month.
Meanwhile, Client Choice has made our staff less busy. That may seem counterintuitive, since there are more decisions being made with every single bag we give out. And yet, prior to Choice, Tony and his food pantry staff were responsible not only for distributing bags to clients, but also for supervising the volunteers who stuffed bags. Managing both sides — on top of the day-to-day logistics of orders and deliveries and so on — stretched pantry staff to their limits. With Client Choice, clients pack their own bags, while volunteers guide them from station to station. It’s all one process. Tony and his staff still oversee pantry operations, but they’re left with more time to chat with clients, get to know volunteers, and tinker with big-picture aspects of the system.
Ecolocity DC, a local Transition Towns and community sustainability group, is hosting two gardening workshops this upcoming week. Both of them are focused on ways that you can build good soil, therefore enabling you to grow great food.
The first is a “Composting 101″ workshop this Saturday, August 14, with Ed Bruske, “The Slow Cook.” [...]
Posted in AccessThis was our first summer at the Washington Youth Garden working with the Mayor’s Green Summer Job Corp Program. Administered through the District Department of the Environment, over 800 youth are employed by the city to perform outdoor-based work to improve our urban environment. We hosted one crew of fourteen and fifteen year olds who [...]
Posted in AccessStory and photos by Allison Burket
On July 26, despite record-breaking temperatures, over a dozen volunteers joined DC Food For All for a Saturday morning workday at Common Good City Farm!
[Common Good City Farm, Washington, DC’s only urban farm, was founded in 2006 to support healthy, affordable food access in DC communities. Two years ago, it relocated from its original home on 7th Street NW (you may remember it as the 7th Street Garden) at the request of the LeDroit Park Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC). Now located at V & 3rd Streets NW on what was formerly a baseball field on the grounds of a shuttered middle school, Common Good has since provided over 400 bags of fresh produce.
Between time spent tending the berry plants, volunteers took a tour of the farm – which includes a forest garden, a weed garden, and dutifully decaying compost piles. The farm itself was a delight, featuring arrangements of leafy greens, berry plants, and everything in between. My favorite part was the intentionally meandering, spiraling walkways that practically force visitors to stop and smell the sunflowers. The farm is organized and maintained based on principles of permaculture, which works to mimic relationships between species found in nature, thereby encouraging crops to support each other as they grow.
We later reviewed the programming components of Common Good’s educational and gleaning programs. Through the Green Tomorrow program, produce from the farm goes to neighborhood residents, who work a certain number of hours on the farm in exchange for fresh fruits and vegetables. The rest is donated to local food pantries dedicated to improving healthy food access. Common Good also engages youth in the neighborhood, encouraging in the next generation the skills and enthusiasm to eat healthy and prepare their own food.
The day ended, of course, with a potluck! A feast of beet brownies, freshly-picked peaches, and a cumin quinoa salad was well worth the sweat and sunburn.
Want to get or stay involved? We talked with Spencer, the farm manager, and Olivia, the volunteer coordinator about all sorts of ways DC Food For All readers can support Common Good:
Call your Councilmember! Common Good needs help pushing the City Council to move forward on plans to turn the empty lot next to the farm into a neighborhood park! The park would be an important asset to the community and would help draw wider neighborhood participation to the farm. Ward 8 Councilmember Marion Berry recently moved to extend the public comment period for the proposal, adding another delay to the long-overdue approval and construction of the park.
This most recent postponement increases the likelihood that the city may never come through on its promise. Call Councilmember Barry at (202) 724-8045 or Ward 1 Councilmember Jim Graham (202) 724-8181 to urge action on the park for LeDroit Park!
Volunteer! Olivia the volunteer coordinator also emphasized that Common Good is always looking for individuals interested in sharing their time or specific talents with the farm.
The Farm is open Monday and Thursday afternoons (3-7 pm) and Wednesday and Saturday mornings (10 am -1 pm). Visitors are always welcome to stop by, though Common Good requires that any who would like to volunteer participate in one of the volunteer orientation sessions, which usually take place the first Saturday of every month. Check here!
If you are interested in neighborhood outreach, enthusiastic about grant-writing, enjoy putting up fliers, or want to help with database management, e-mail info@commongoodcityfarm.org with “Attn: Olivia” in the subject line.
Did you know they take food scraps? Your kitchen waste can help nourish the farm! Drop off your food scraps (no meat or dairy please!) anytime during work hours and Common Good will help you add it to their compost pile! Click here for a full list of what they accept.
Donate! Tax-deductible donations can be made on the website. Click here!
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This summer, a youth program called DC is Building Green Bridges has been busily gardening, learning about nutrition, and discussing food security issues east of the Anacostia River. Our students are engaged, intelligent, and working hard!
They have created a pilot ‘community needs’ survey to determine the viability of a farmers market at THEARC on Mississippi Avenue—and they’ve just conducted their first surveys at senior centers in wards 7 and 8. They have written their own blog posts and have created a social networking page for the program. Below is the their first blog post, written in the hopes to gain exposure to the program and their project. Enjoy!
Hello world, allow us to introduce ourselves: we are DC is Building Green Bridges. Building Green Bridges is a program based in Washington D.C. consisting of youth who are interested in making a better community by educating and informing the people about eating healthy, making better health choices, and ultimately, changing the way people view our city as a whole by growing our own food in the city.
Here are the goals we are hoping to achieve:
Currently we are working on establishing a garden at THEARC. We are planting a flower garden with junipers, flowers, butterfly bushes and hollies. We are also helping to set up a garden at the Ferebee-Hope Elementary School, which will encourage the younger students to take advantage of the garden and plant on their own. In addition, we are visiting different gardens around the city such as The Peoples Garden, Common Goods City Farm, The U.S. Botanic Gardens, Lederer Youth Garden, and the Marion Street Garden.
Before we can implement any course of action for a farmers market, we must complete a needs assessment to help us better understand what the community would best profit from. Will a farmers market be viable? Do people want one? Our assessment won’t be very long; it’s just a few questions designed, revised, and tailored to provide us with the most information about the needs of Ward 8 residents, while at the same time not hampering your schedule with a lengthy interview.
Currently, we are brainstorming ideas for alternatives to the on street survey, one of which may be filling out the survey online. Having an online option may appeal to people who do not have time to fill out a survey in the street. Another alternative we are considering would be for people to mail a completed survey to us. This may appeal to those without an Internet connection.
If a farmers market was opened at THEARC, it would provide fresh fruits and vegetables grown in the community, for the community. Fresh produce that will be sold at THEARC would be better than the produce found in most supermarkets, because the produce in supermarkets is shipped from countries around the world, and are pumped full of chemical pesticides that are harmful to the people that eat them.
Our goal is to help the community. But in order to do that, we need the assistance of the community. Please take the time to check out our program, so that you can help make YOUR community better.
Please join us for an evening of film, local light fare and beverages, with a focus on intergenerational urban farming on Thursday evening, August 12, 2010 at Letelier Theater (3251 Prospect Street NW).
The Neighborhood Farm Initiative (NFI) will present the documentary short, Corner Plot, the story of one man’s dedication to work his land, share his produce, and enjoy the farm life he’s always known, inside the DC beltway. In addition to Corner Plot, NFI will present a short film featuring the next generation of urban farmers, the NFI summer youth teams. The screenings will be followed by a 30 minute panel discussion/Q&A session.
For directions and parking information, please visit leteliertheater.com/directions. Doors open & light refreshments served at 6:30 pm. Program will start at 7:30 pm.
Tickets: $25. Details and presale tickets available online. Cash/checks accepted at the door, if seats/tickets are still available
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